Availability: Showing widely in theaters nationally and internationally. Streaming expected in late February; see JustWatch here for future streaming options.
Who’s the Brutalist?
After more than 3 hours, you’ll be glad to get to director and co-writer Brady Corbet’s “Epilogue.” Set at the First Architecture Biennale in Venice, it showcases the buildings of the film’s protagonist, Hungarian architect László Tóth (Adrian Brody), establishing that he’s become internationally respected, even famous. Zsofia, Tóth’s niece, explains that the Van Buren Community Center, the building featured in “The Brutalist,” was shaped in precise ways by Tóth’s experience in a Nazi concentration camp, and she concludes by recounting what László once told her: “It’s the destination, not the journey.”

At the groundbreaking for the Van Buren Community Center, on a hill in idyllic - we're told - rural Pennsylvania. Center, with shovel, Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce).
From right, barely in the picture, almost mute Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), the niece;
in wheelchair, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), the truth-telling wife; to her right, holding her hand,
László Tóth (Adrian Brody); Harrison's twin children Maggie Lee (Stacy Martin);
and Harry Lee (Joe Alwyn). At far left, Harrison's lawyer, Michael Hoffman (Peter Polycarpou).
It's a curious way to end the film, and not only because the Venice episode seems tacked on (is knowledge of the Van Buren structure’s link to the Holocaust necessary to appreciating it? does it matter that Tóth has achieved some measure of fame?). More important, the film we’ve just seen is not about the destination (meaning, presumably, the built structure) but about the journey, the process (in the largest sense) through which that structure came to be.
It’s hard to know exactly what László thinks in the film’s first half, because—in the absence of his wife—he has no one with whom to share his feelings.
László’s journey begins with his escape from a train, bound for (or from) Buchenwald, and his separation from his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy). A displaced person, he arrives in America penniless, his nose broken, and is temporarily taken in by his Americanized (“we’re Catholics now”) cousin Attila and his fatefully attractive blonde wife. Attila owns a furniture store (named “Miller & Sons”—Attila is no Miller and there are no sons) specializing in middle-class designs that don’t interest the modernist-minded and Bauhaus-trained architect (Tóth is loosely based on Marcel Breuer). For a time, László sleeps in a shelter, befriends a black man, Gordon (the familiar Isaach de Bankollé) and his son (fellow outsiders), shovels coal, and works on dangerous high beams, all the while apparently tolerating his lowly condition. It’s hard to know exactly what László thinks in the film’s first half, because—in the absence of his wife—he has no one with whom to share his feelings.

Above, the film in a picture: László (Brody) is the man on top - aesthetically - more comfortable shoveling coal than working for someone else's architectural firm. At right, Gordon (Isaach de Bankollé) represents László's affection for authentic people, for outsiders like himself. And, from the back, the rich, crass Harrison Van Buren (Pearce), pleading with the architect to come back to work for him.
Despite (or because of) their aesthetic differences, Attila arranges for László to design a quickie renovation of the library of the wealthy businessman Harrison Lee Van Buren, Sr. (Guy Pearce; the character bears the names of two rather ordinary 19th-century US presidents), the remodeling intended as a surprise. Harrison hates it, then later admires it (setting the stage for a deeper ambivalence to come), then impulsively hires László to design and build the Van Buren Community Center, to be located on a hill on the Van Buren property and intended, presumably, to serve the people of the nearby town of Doyle, in rural Pennsylvania.
Not only László, but Erzsébet and Zsófia, have been physically, and sexually, damaged by their Holocaust experiences.
Corbet, a mere 36 with not much of note to his credit, burst on the awards scene with this epic saga (nominated for 10 Oscars and 9 BAFTAs), starring the youngest man ever to win a Best Actor Oscar—Brody at 29 for the title role in Roman Polanski’s 2002 “The Pianist.” Brody again plays a World War II survivor, in this case a deeply damaged man. Not only László, but Erzsébet and Zsófia too have been physically, and sexually, damaged by their Holocaust experiences. Corbet’s rich narrative also includes excerpts from a Pennsylvania boosterism infomercial along with documentary footage of the establishment of the state of Israel. Parallel themes abound: Pennsylvania, Israel, the Holocaust, the outsider, sexual frustration.

Like father, like son. Left, Harrison Van Buren (Pearce), the crass, stiff, inauthentic rich guy,
and right, his son and knock-off, Harry Lee (Alwyn), crasser than Dad.
Though a complex film in many ways, a simple stage has been set, foregrounding László’s relationship to his benefactors. Harrison and his son, Harry Lee (Joe Alwyn), are arrogant (“We tolerate you,” Harry says to László), crass, uncouth, clumsily unctuous, egotistical (Harrison vetoes a swimming pool for the Center because “I don’t know how to swim”) and racist. They live in a late-19th-century mansion that would dwarf the Hearst castle. Harrison and Harry’s first reaction to discord is to throw someone out of the house, or off the job or, as when Harrison sees the dark-skinned Gordon for the first time, “thrown off the property.” At one dinner party, rather late in their relationship, Harrison makes fun of László’s accent, suggesting he could be shining his shoes, then humiliates the architect by tossing a penny at him and making him pick it up. The script gives Harrison a back story (an out of wedlock baby, his mother disowned by her parents), though if the purpose is to explain—let alone justify—his behavior, it fails.
Bad boy creator? Victim? Who is László Tóth?
László handles most of this abuse with remarkable equanimity, though he has limits, especially when it comes to his work—the emerging community center. He detests the interference—and design changes—of a local architect of limited talent and, as his exasperation mounts, engages in Van Buren-like behavior, shouting and angrily throwing off the payroll and the premises a worker who has been doing pull-ups on a scaffold. When the truth-teller, his wife (who, after years of efforts to get her into the United States, has arrived from Europe, in a wheelchair, accompanied by his nearly mute niece), accuses him of being “horrible,” he attributes his behavior to the people he is forced to work with—“these people.” Bad boy creator? Victim? Who is László Tóth? (To fully answer that question, you’ll need a deep dive into his sexuality.)
He hates László for what he is (not just a Jew, but a creative force), yet he longs to control, and to possess, that artistic essence.
More germane to the film’s interpretive core, who is Harrison Van Buren? The question may seem perverse, if only because the Harrison character is so starkly overdrawn, a caricature of the type (with Harry even more so). Yet despite his air of pomposity and his performances of power and superiority, Harrison values what László brings to his dinner table and to his existence; he finds their simple conversations “stimulating.” By his own admission, he is envious of László’s talents. He hates László for what he is (not just a Jew, but a creative force), yet he longs to control, and to possess, that artistic essence. In an effort to experience some of what László feels, Harrison accompanies him to a marble quarry in Carrara, Italy, where he literally embraces—in effect, possesses—a handsome slab of marble and, in a way, László himself. Later, he takes advantage of László’s drugged state and rapes him, not just once again asserting his power, but physically possessing László’s body, while telling him “you are wasting your potential” (perhaps true, but also, surely, Harrison is projecting onto the architect his own sense of inferiority, his own, growing sense of squandered potential).

László (Brody), left,
and Harrison (Pearce)
in happier days of
their partnership.
The most obvious meaning of the film’s title is that its protagonist—an architect working in the Brutalist mode, a technique that would dominate the field in the 1960s and 1970s—is “The Brutalist.” As applied to architecture, the term refers to béton brut, French for “raw concrete,” the material usually associated with the style. With a lower-case “b,” brutalism also connotes the ugly, a word that some might find descriptive of László’s inelegant, boxy community center.
More likely, The Brutalist is Harrison Van Buren.
He says: The “bad guys” are all stereotypes of a high order. Still, the film works.
She says: The last time I recall a true intermission was at the first run of the almost 4-hour “Lawrence of Arabia” in London; the urban myth was that the audience members got thirsty watching all that desert and needed a break for a drink.
Date: 2024
Director: Bradley Corbet
Starring: Adrian Brody, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Felicity Jones, Isaach de Bankolé, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Peter Polycarpou
Runtime: 215 minutes (includes 15-minute intermission)
Countries: United States, United Kingdom, Hungary
Languages: English, Hungarian, Italian, Hebrew, Yiddish (most non-English dialogue subtitled in English)
Oscar Nominations: 10, for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Original Score
Other Awards: 102 wins and 303 nominations, including 9 BAFTAs
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